Hello readers!
We now have a proposal for our group project! If you’re interested in learning more about our objectives, research questions, etc., please click on the link below to read our proposal.
LFS 350 – Group 4 Proposal Report
Can you believe that six weeks of classes have passed us by? Me neither. Before we continue with our strategies for the future weeks, let us look back at our weekly objectives and achievements in the previous weeks!
| Week | Dates | Weekly Objective | Achievement |
| 1 | Jan 4-8 | To become familiar with the core principles of the LFS 350 course, which reflects some aspects from the transdisciplinary science of sustainable food systems. To get to know other team members. |
Every team member became acquainted with each other in terms of individual and collective group goals along with what we would like to take out of this course. |
| 2 | Jan 11-15 | To become familiar with asset-based community development and to start building ideas for projects related to the Vancouver Food Strategy. |
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| 3 | Jan 18-22 | To come up with a more concrete idea for our group project regarding food waste. |
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| 4 | Jan 25-29 | To construct a well-written proposal that reflects our project. To set our group’s aim and objective. |
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| 5 | Feb 1-5 | Feb 1: Proposal Feedback
Feb 5: Proposal Submission |
The proposal was submitted in time |
| 6 | Feb 8-13 | Feb 8: Family Day
Feb 13: Grocery Store Visits – Ensure that we have full permission from the AMS to operate the booth |
Submitted the temporary food service permit to Vancouver Coastal Health. Coordinated with Roots on the Roof to operate our booth under the club, and arranged with AMS Booking services to confirm our space (AMS Nest Level 1) |
One moment of significance that has occurred in the course so far is when we, as a group, decided on doing the recovered smoothie project (i.e. making smoothies using recovered produce). According to Rolfe et al. (2001), reflection upon a certain action or idea can be done by asking ourselves three questions: “What?”, “So what?” and “Now what?”. When answered in order, the three questions chronologically helps us reflect on what the underlying issue is (or was), why is the issue significant and based on our knowledge, how can we come about addressing it. “Now what” ultimately helps us navigate how we can make better improvements in the future based on what we have learned.
What?
Our primary concern looked at issues on food waste as it is both an economic and environmental problem tying into sustainability. Our very first idea for a food waste project was to work on utilizing used ground coffee beans for small scale agricultural use (i.e. household spices garden, soil for a pot plant) assessing whether connecting businesses with small scale farmers would mitigate food waste (i.e., coffee beans) and costs. However, after further discussion among fellow team members, along with Will’s input, we agreed that the ground coffee beans project was not very feasible. Human interaction (i.e. potentially required house visitations) became one of our biggest concerns, as we feared that we might not be able to visit as much residential areas as we could within the time constraint of the project.
So what?
The entire brainstorming process taught us that we had to think smaller as our initial idea may be too big of a project to take on. We had to be flexible on changing our preconceived notions about what may or may not work in a project. We believed that the ground coffee bean project could be accomplished, until Will suggested that we could be facing difficulties achieving some of our project goals (i.e. complete house visitations) due to time constraints. In addition, we were exposed to a broader perspective that is needed during inception of ideas, which includes more thorough considerations of interaction with stakeholders, stricter adherence to time constraints and possible communication with a bureaucratic body (i.e. City of Vancouver, AMS Student Society).
Now what?
We ultimately agreed on a different project that is still based on food waste – The Recovered Smoothie Project. In the future, project planning should be strategically done in ways that constantly assess the project’s feasibility and possibility to achieve success. Specific factors, such as time constraints and bureaucratic interaction, may be the biggest hurdle in accomplishing a project, which is why minimizing or finding an alternative to managing these factors could be worthwhile. For instance, instead of trying to extend the project’s time span, it may be better to narrow the focus of the project into a more achievable scope.
Additionally, it may be wise to perform a project pre-mortem before we move forward with more deliberate project planning. A project pre-mortem is helpful in early identification of potential failures, which can help groups plan their projects more wisely in order to avoid eventual incompletion (Klein, 2007). As reflected in the text, a pre-mortem would also help us ensure all team members are on the same page and know what to expect from themselves and others throughout the project.
And now, these are our objectives for the next three weeks, and how we are planning on achieving our goals.
| Week | Dates | Weekly Objectives | Strategies to Achieve |
| Reading Week |
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| 7 | Feb 22-26 |
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| 8 | Feb 29-Mar 4 | Feb 29: Booth Day
Mar 1: Process data from survey answers Mar 4: Compile website view count |
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While the above-mentioned objectives seem feasible, some obstacles that would prevent them from being achieved include:
- being unable to find enough grocery stores selling discounted produce by the time the website is launched (Booth Day)
- being unable to find enough recovered produce to create large quantities of smoothies for our Booth Day activity
- being unable to gather accurate data from students via surveys, as they would be more interested in accepting a free smoothies than providing us with thoughtful responses to the survey
With these challenges in mind, we are certain to be giving this project our best efforts in making it successful. As with any data-gathering project, statistical errors must be minimized as little as possible in order to provide a clear description of the sample population we have interacted with.
We’re quite excited with how fun Booth Day promises to be, and we hope that we will be able to convey our message efficiently by handing out smoothies made out of recovered produce and explaining to students the importance of reducing food waste.
Until next post,
Team 4
References:
Klein, G. (September, 2007). Performing a project premortem. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2007/09/performing-a-project-premortem